Page 13 of Direct Action

I wanted to crawl under a rock and not come out for a month. I was no longer worried I’d be getting fired—I wanted to quit the Dirty Plank and see if the Vault could give me more hours. I wanted to leave California and see if Arizona was really as hot as everyone complained it was.

If my life didn’t include taking care of my beloved father, I would flee. I’d quit the Plank so I’d never have to look at Ryan again.

Unfortunately, these were the thoughts clogging my head when I climbed the stairs to my apartment. Thus, I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings—Safety 101 failure on my part. That meant when a hand wrapped around my arm, my reaction time was delayed.

Hot breath fanned over my neck when an angry voice lashed out. “Do you have a death wish?”

I opened my mouth to scream, another hand went over my mouth, and I was pulled back against a solid wall of muscle.

The last thought I had before flight or fight took over was that Ryan Strong was solely to blame for my demise.

Chapter Six

“Quiet.”

The voice registered, and I slumped in defeat.

Ryan Strong.

Worse, Ryan angry outside my apartment in the middle of the night.

He dropped his hand covering my mouth but kept ahold of my arm and guided me to my front door.

“Inside,” he ordered.

Okay. He might’ve been angry and I might’ve been mortified, but barking at me . . .

Um. No.

I tipped my head back and to the side, braved his fury, and snapped back, “Take your hand off me.”

“In. Side.” Ryan doubled down with the syllable enunciation.

Two could play that game, or they could when one of them wasn’t dead on their feet. I managed to rally and narrowed my eyes to issue my own repeated demand, “Take. Your. Hand. Off. Of. Me.”

My tone didn’t have the same gravel as his and my squinty eyes no doubt looked more tired than ferocious, but my point was made.

Ryan dropped his hand. Unfortunately, now that it was free, he crossed his arms over his chest. The unfortunate part about that was he had a really great chest. Not that I’d ever seen him without a shirt on, but a few times he’d come into the bar after a run wearing one of those compression tank tops that should be outlawed—or at least it should’ve been illegal for Ryan to wear them. Those tank tops were detrimental to my mental health. And if that was the case, seeing him bare chested would probably send me straight into a life-threatening cardiac event.

“Chloe,” he hissed.

“What?” I didn’t hiss, I breathed now that my eyes had latched on to the clearly visible swells of his pecs.

“Open your door.”

I pulled myself from my mental undressing of my boss.

Yes, I know, highly inappropriate, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Why are you here?” I belatedly asked.

“It’s almost four in the morning.” He unnecessarily noted the time. My feet, not to mention my eyeballs were very aware I’d been awake nearing twenty hours.

“And?”

“And maybe we can have this discussion in your apartment instead of on the breezeway when your neighbors are trying to sleep.”

“Or maybe we don’t have this discussion now.” I tossed out an alternate plan I liked a lot more. “Or, say, ever.”